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The BEST compost and how to make it

Tony Callaghan 12/03/2018

The BEST compost and how to make it

What is the very BEST Compost and How do you make it? 

A few years ago, we investigated if composts varied. (Yes, a lot). This led us to investigate why they varied and how we would make the very best compost - we wanted to make the World's Best compost

(Of course, we are biased, but you can short cut to the answer via the link: SF60 - Biochar Super Compost.)


What is compost?

We pulled apart many composts. In summary, well-matured composts contain two main fractions:  particulate organic matter (POM) and colloidal humus (CH). Let's look at these in a bit more detail.

About 95-98% of all compost is small brown bits of partly decomposed material. (The technical term would be particulate organic matter (POM). These brown pieces range in size from 1mm to 10 mm pieces. They biodegrade swiftly within 18 months - i.e. they are converted to carbon dioxide. During this process, small amounts of nutrients are released into the soil. They will absorb water, but they also dry out very quickly. The particles can help 'break-up' heavy clays.

Around 2-5% of the compost is "Colloidal Humus". This is tiny particles of sticky dark brown substances.  The science indicates the humus fraction does not biodegrade - it remains in the soil for many years, on some occasions thousands of years. Colloidal humus is important as it holds X10 own weight in water, it does not dry out quickly. Further, it has a high CEC (cation exchange capacity). A technical term - but think of a sponge that holds nutrients (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus etc). Humus is the best nutrient sponge. The sickness glues the clay and sand into aggregates. We all tend to know that dark loams soil rich in humus are fertile and easy to till and grown things in. It is fair to say fertile loam soils are fertile because they have lots of colloidal humus.

(Read more about the components of compost and components of growing media/composts here.)


What is THE BEST compost?

In our view, it followed, if colloidal humus was the most important part of fertile soil, then composts with more colloidal humus would be better than compost with lots of POM.

It took many attempts to find out how to increase the colloidal humus content - but we increased from 2-5% to 5-15% and finally 20-40%. When we tested our best biochar based compost (SF60 Biochar Super Compost (Soil Improver)) against other composts the results were mind-blowing (in some cases 100% more growth. (Quick note - we treat all plant growth results with caution - there are so many variables, you need hundreds of tests to confirm things are as they seem). You can jump to some of our test results via this link.


Benefits of The best compost

Benefits include: improving soil water retention, re-wetting after periods of dry weather, holding and releasing nutrients, and refining soil aggregation leading to better aeration. It’s also jam-packed with trace mineral nutrients and typically survives in soil for over 100 years.


How to make the BEST compost

Sprinkle the SoilFixer Compost Humification Agent onto green waste when adding it to compost. Our tests show that it increases the colloidal humus matrix to 40-percent of the compost mix.

Once made, add it to containers and vegetable plots. You’ll soon notice plants in pots and containers are revitalised and your vegetables grow more vigorously.

You may also be interested in our blog on Amazonian Darth Earths (Terra Preta) - an ancient form of super compost. In this blog we discuss how it might have been formed and compare our SF60 super compost method to the possible TP recipe that is long lost.

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